Announced measures intended to regulate the steps taken by insurance companies to address the aids risk

The National AIDS Council notes with satisfaction the measures announced in the statement made on February 28, 1991 by Pierre Bérégovoy, Minister of State and Minister for the Economy, Finance and Budget, and Claude Évin, Minister of Social Affairs and Solidarity, concerning the regulation of the steps taken by insurance companies to address the AIDS risk.

The National AIDS Council also expresses its satisfaction that the proposals set out in its opinion of February 1990 have provided a basis for the considerations of the working group set up at the initiative of those two Ministers and led by Benoit Jolivet.

However, the Jolivet report left to the discretion and internal controls of insurance companies certain practical aspects of the implementation of its recommendations, which appears to be a high-risk position in the lead-up to a single European insurance market. It is for this reason that the National AIDS Council welcomes the undertaking given by these two ministers to issue as early as possible the decrees required by two essential points : the prohibition of any reference to intimate areas of private life, notably sexuality, in medical questionnaires ; an absolute ban on all HIV screening for policies worth less than one million francs.

However, the National AIDS Council stresses that these pragmatic and innovative measures are no more than a partial response to the range of ethical issues referred to in its opinion.